a light—faded, dimmed, but there. And she knew in that instant what her father and grandmother had been hoping for during the long years—that the light might still illuminate the real Theodora Kellaway, the woman of laughter and warmth who had suffocated beneath the burden of her illness.
Lydia pulled her arms around herself as another woman came to her mind, a softer figure than Theodora Kellaway. This other woman smelled like apples and cinnamon. She wore her braided brown hair in a smooth coronet, spoke in a quiet, musical voice, smiled with her coffee-colored eyes.
Before she even asked the question, pain speared through the middle of Lydia’s chest. Her fingers tightened on her arms, the woman’s name pushing past her lips like a broken shard of porcelain.
“Greta?”
“Sie ist tot.” Joseph Cole spoke without inflection.
Shock froze her to the bone. Lydia swallowed a sob of sorrow and regret, backing against the wall as she struggled to put distance between them, not wanting to breathe the same air as him.
“W-when? How?” She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask, had to absorb the knowledge as if it were a form of punishment.
“Consumption. Three years ago.”
Lydia forced away the tears crowding her throat, hating the lack of emotion in Cole’s voice but knowing that Greta would not have noticed anything was amiss.
I’m sorry, Greta. I’m so, so sorry…
“Lydia.”
She turned to see Alexander come toward her again, though he remained a good distance away. Tension vibrated from him. She held up a hand to stay his approach, not taking her eyes from Cole, who stood watching her.
“Please.” She whispered the entreaty both to prevent Alexander from overhearing and because regret stifled her voice. “Dr. Cole, please go. Please leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again. I never did.”
The faint smile disappeared from his lips, replaced by an iciness that she knew was borne from deep within his being. “Before you speak again, Lydia, I suggest you read my letter. Otherwise you might do something you will regret.”
He stepped back, his gaze sliding from Lydia to Alexander and back again. “Congratulations on your engagement. I read about it in the Morning Post.”
A sick feeling swirled through her gut. She watched Dr. Cole go, air from the open door washing away some of the thickness surrounding her.
Her heart throbbed with relentless pressure against her chest; her breath came short and choppy. Even her blood felt heavier, as if the concert of her body was determined to remind her that she lived. That she was alive, could inhale and exhale, could think and move and be.
Unlike her mother. Unlike Greta.
Alexander’s strong arms caught her the instant before she collapsed to the ground.
The unopened letter lay like a flat stone on her lap. Alexander sat on the carriage seat across from her, his arms tight across his chest. Lydia could sense the questions simmering in his mind and his palpable effort to restrain them.
“Who is he?” Alexander finally asked. The question pulsed with urgency.
“No one you care to know.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s a mathematician. A good one. Or at least he was. Years ago.”
“How do you know him?”
“Could you… Alexander, I must go home.”
“Why?”
“Please.”
He rapped on the roof to gain the coachman’s attention, then gave instructions to head to East Street.
Although Alexander remained silent for the drive, dissatisfaction and unease coiled through him. Lydia gripped the letter so tightly she thought she might tear it—and considered doing just that, ripping the paper up into a hundred pieces and tossing them outside. Horses’ hooves, carriage wheels, wagons, dogs, pedestrians—all would trample over the torn pieces and crush them until they rotted and dissolved in the filth.
Because she knew the contents of the letter. Knew them as well as she knew the Pythagorean theorem. Knew them as well as she knew the contours of Jane’s face, the different shades in the girl’s hair. The color of Jane’s eyes.
She preceded Alexander from the carriage and hurried to open the front door.
“Hello, Miss Kellaway. I’ve got seed cake fresh from the ov—” Mrs. Driscoll stopped in the foyer, looking past Lydia to where Alexander stood on the doorstep. “Oh, good day, Lord Northwood.”
“Mrs. Driscoll, is Jane at home?” Lydia asked, trying to keep the urgency from her voice.
“No, miss. Mrs. Boyd took her to her piano lesson.”
“Please tell me at once when they return.”
Mrs. Driscoll looked from her to Alexander again, a line of confusion between her brows. “I’ll… er… I’ll fetch tea, shall I?”